July (Calendar Girl #7)

by Audrey Carlan

  Those green orbs glazed over with what could only be seen as pure, carnal lust. We stood there, eyes locked on one another as we had a visual silent war with one another. Nostrils flared, eyes squinted, and finally I spoke.

  “You could feed me. I’m starved,” I said. Heather, standing a lot closer than I thought, snorted with laughter, breaking the tension between me and the Latin Lov-ah. Now, seeing him in front of me, it made all kinds of sense where he got that name.

  His head cut to hers. “Sorry, Anton,” she said and looked away, failing to hide the smile on her face.

  Anton held his hand out to me. “Mia, let’s fill you up.” The way he said those words literally made me think of a hundred other completely inappropriate things besides food. I licked my lips and smacked my chops.

  “Yes, let’s.”

  Chapter 2

  Anton led the three of us to the elevator and up to the penthouse, his private residence. The moment the doors opened Anton walked through them leaving the two of us behind. “You know what to do, H.” He hollered over his shoulder, not even sparing a glance in his wake.

  Heather led me in the opposite direction. “Come on girl, I think we’ll be needing a drink. A big one.”

  We entered an open floor plan kitchen; white cabinets spanned an entire wall, each with a unique black scrollwork handle, as if each one was individually made. An obscenely long counter stretched in front of the cabinetry and top notch appliances. Ten stools with rounded tops sat in a perfect line under the black granite slab counter. I pulled one out and sat, tugging down the itty bitty shorts as much as possible to make sure portions of my ass weren’t hanging over the bull-nosed edge of the stool. Not a good look for anybody.

  “Do you like pomegranate?” Heather pulled out two crystal martini glasses.

  I nodded. “Very much.”

  She proceeded to pull out a giant bottle of Grey Goose Vodka, a metal shaker, and the juice.

  “So what does Anton have planned for me?” I asked while she dropped the cubes into the shaker, then with a heavy hand, poured the vodka, adding just a splash of the pomegranate concentrate.

  Heather smirked and smiled. “You mean aside from fucking you?” The statement was more an accusation than a question. I balked, unable to believe the audacity of what she just said.

  “Don’t act all coy. I saw the way the two of you were eye-fucking each other in the studio earlier. I give it until evening before he has you laid out underneath him.”

  She pushed the martini filled to the brim with burgundy liquid over to me. “Bottoms up?” She said and took a healthy swig.

  I did the same needing the liquid courage to set her straight. “You really don’t think that highly of me, do you?” The words came out as venomous as a rattle snake’s bite.

  Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Don’t you fuck all your clients? You are an escort.” That one word carried an enormous amount of scorn.

  On that note, I smacked the glass down, red liquid sloshing all over the counter. “I fuck who I want, when I want to. It’s not part of my contract. I’m an escort not a whore.” I blew out a harsh breath and continued. “I offer companionship or fill a need, but that need doesn’t necessarily include fucking my clients.” My tone was rife with indignation although, technically, I had fucked some of my clients, but not all of them.

  I say who and I say when. Period.

  Thoughts of the man who wanted to push the physical who and the when onto me, creeped their sinister way into my subconscious. If I could, I’d bat the disgusting reminders back with a sledgehammer. lock them in a very dark closet, and throw away the key. You will not control me.

  Instead of letting Heather speak, revenge scaled along my chest and up through my throat, fueled by my lingering fear of what had recently occurred with Aaron. “Now I know why you don’t have any friends. You’re judgmental, pissy, and downright rude!”

  Heather backed up a few steps until she hit the opposite counter where the stainless steel, double-wide Sub Zero fridge shook. If I hadn’t been paying close attention I wouldn’t have recognized the shimmery blue of her eyes. She cleared her throat, raised a delicate, long-fingered hand to her chest and spoke. “I’m sorry, Mia. That was rude of me.”

  “Damn right it was rude!” My mouth hurt from clenching my teeth. I sucked back the rest of my drink allowing the fiery burn to disguise the acid burn building in the pit of my stomach.

  She licked her lips and her eyes moved from side to side. “Again, please, I’m sorry. I didn’t hire you to be his bedmate; he has plenty of those. You’re going to be the main woman in the new video. A woman he wants, a seductress that he can’t have.”

  A seductress. Now there’s something I hadn’t been. It sounded so ridiculous, especially in light of the heated conversation we just had, that I tipped my head back and laughed. A full-bellied, snorting, hiccoughing guffaw, that rose in volume and hysterics.

  Heather’s eyebrows drew up toward her hairline. “Um, okay...well, no more ‘tini’s for you!” She winked, effectively lightening the situation.

  I placed my elbow on the counter and my chin into my hand. “Today has been odd. Hell, the past month was nuts. This just tops the crazy cake I call my life.” I shook my head and ran my fingers through my hair. It was getting really long. Maybe I could swindle some time away from the Latin Lov-ah to score a haircut.

  Regardless of what she’d said, Heather made us both another drink. “Can we call a truce? I really don’t want you hating me, and I did misunderstand the meaning of what you do.” Her blue eyes seemed round and big on her pretty face, innocent even.

  I held out my hand. She glanced at it, a weariness making her movements slow when she clasped mine with her own. We shook. “Truce.” I smiled. She grinned back and repeated the word.

  “Two ladies shaking hands over a couple of alcoholic beverages can be cause to make a man nervous. What are you two conspiring?” Anton entered wearing a flowing pair of white linen pants that had a drawstring hanging precariously close to his manhood. He paired the pants with a crisp mint green dress shirt that he left open, exposing his finely sculpted abdomen. Perfectly manicured toes peeked out past the loose fitting pants. Damn, even his feet were lickable. That right there said more than it should about the insanely beautiful specimen standing before me. I watched him move with the grace of a cougar even with the bulk of his muscles to weigh him down. Anton wasn’t short but he wasn’t extremely tall. I’d guess around five foot eleven, which was fine for me since I was only five foot eight, but I typically preferred my men taller like Wes and Alec.

  Wes and Alec. Two men, two completely different feelings rushing through my system at the mere thought of them. One had lasting implications of a future together and the other, lasting desire.

  Anton moved to Heather and placed an arm around her shoulders. “So, H, Lucita here is going to be the love interest that I cannot have in the video?” He squeezed Heather’s bicep pulling her into his side in a friendly hold, but his eyes never left mine. She nodded mutely and rolled her eyes. He brought his opposite hand up toward his face where he proceeded to pet the flesh of his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb as he assessed me. It was as if his fingertips were tracking all over my form the way his eyes moved over each new surface of skin.

  Not gonna lie. I swooned. Hard. Damn, he had it going on in the looks department as well as the way he moved and spoke. The hint of his Puerto Rican accent, the way his words seemed to roll off his tongue like sex incarnate…did something to me. Something I did not want to feel after what I’d just gone through in June with Aaron. Nevertheless, low and behold, this guy, the Latin Lov-ah, must have had supercharged pheromones because I felt each and every one of them like a physical blow to my sex.

  “You are damn fine, girl.” He tipped his chin up at me. “You got moves?”

  “Er, as in what type of moves?” I asked.

  He spun away from Heather, on the tips of his toes and moved in a series of
fast circles until he made his way around the long counter and slid toward me on a clap, a shimmy of his hips, and a pop of his chest. Anton stopped a hair’s breadth from my face, smelling of soap and coconut, reminding me of lying out on a sunny beach in Hawaii. I wanted to be lying on a beach in Hawaii right now, preferably underneath this sex god.

  “Moves, muñeca,” he whispered. I could feel the heat of his breath against my face, small puffs of air tantalizing my nerves and awakening lust receptors from their month long sleep.

  I held his gaze with my own then leaned close, resting my cheek against his so I could whisper into his ear. “What does muñeca mean?” The words were soft, almost a caress against his skin.

  “Doll.” His voice was gritty, as if he swallowed a spoonful of sand.

  “And Lucita?” I let my lips hover close enough to his cheek that I could feel the stubble on his jaw.

  He groaned and laid a hand on my hip, a feather light hold that my mind dismissed casually. “Little light.”

  Little light? I moved my head back breaking the intensity of the moment and the halo of lust surrounding our close proximity. “Little light?” I couldn’t hold back the giggle that escaped. “Why?”

  With the lightest touch of the tips of two fingers, he traced the ball of my shoulder and slid those digits down along the sensitive skin of my arm. Gooseflesh rose against the surface, a gnarled pair of claws worked their way up from where he held my wrist up my arm, over my chest to coil around my heart and squeeze. Blackness entered my vision and the sound of a heartbeat thudded loudly. My skin felt tight, constricted, every nerve prickling with the desire to run, cower…escape.

  “You ready to get pounded?” he growls, his breath hitting my face with little flecks of spittle.

  My body presses against the concrete wall of the library. The sickening sound of his pants being unbuckled and the noise of the zipper going down is like my own personal death knell. I scream as loud as I can, but he swoops down so fast and bites the sound from my lips and then slams my head into the concrete. Pain flashes across my vision like stars in an open dessert sky.

  “No!”

  “No!” I screamed and pushed the hard body standing too close then jumped back until I hit the edge of a couch. A couch? Huh? Moving my head back and forth I shook off the web of memories clouding my judgement.

  Holy fucking shit! What. The. Hell. Was. That?

  Two pairs of horrified eyes watched as I came to. “Mia…” Heather gasped, her hand over her mouth.

  “Lucita, I…perdóname. I’m sorry. Did I hurt you somehow?” Anton’s voice was tinged with distaste and something that I could only name as fear.

  Shit. This was not going well. Why did I have that flashback? What the hell triggered it?

  I shook my head. “No, no, sorry guys. I think I’m just tired from traveling, and I haven’t eaten, and I drank the martini so quickly…yeah, I’m sure that’s what it was.” Had to be.

  Anton’s lips tightened into a thin line. “Let’s get you fed. I will not tolerate my team not having their needs met. Come. H, let’s go to our favorite.” He held out his hand to me and I placed mine within it. The familiar stirrings of excitement were still there but now with the edge of nervousness. From the simple act of holding his hand. What. The. Fuck. This is not you, Mia. I needed to figure this out and quick. But how?

  Not knowing what else to do, I followed Anton and Heather out the door, my mind in a tizzy and the circle of fear still nipping at my heels.

  ***

  Dinner was awesome. Delicious Gnocchi al Gorgonzola they called it at Il Gabbiano, the upscale Italian restaurant Anton took us to. I was completely underdressed, but so were he and Heather. As we walked into the place, several of Anton’s security team was hot on our tails. We entered as though we were royalty. The restaurant manager spied us and made his way over as if he was barefoot walking on steaming black coals. He sat us with no waiting at a corner table with a beautiful view of the Atlantic ocean. Anton ordered several appetizers with a flourish and a pristine white smile. His pale green and brown gaze dazzled every woman within a twenty foot radius and garnered the attention of the other patrons. Both Heather and I ordered antipasti, me wanting something devilishly decadent and filled with a bazillion calories, so I ordered my all-time favorite, puffy pillows of goodness, gnocchi covered in crème sauce. It was absolute heaven on the taste buds.

  Anton ordered a shrimp and pasta dish, and ate his food with speed and efficiency, as though it would jump off his plate back into the ocean. When I questioned his feverish eating, he frowned, wiped his mouth and looked out over the Atlantic. Heather studiously changed the subject before he could answer. Apparently she knew something about this particular hot button item that I didn’t. I glanced at her, and she shook her head minutely. The conversation turned to the music video and what the plan was.

  That’s when I had to drop the giant atomic bomb that I had absolutely no skills in the art of dance, what-so-ever.

  “None?” Anton’s eyebrows pinched together. I shook my head and bit my lip. He lifted a hand, scraped it across his five o’clock shadow, and inhaled. “We’ll have to do something about this. You”—his hand gestured from the top of my head to the end of the table—“are perfecto eh…perfect as the seductress. H, you couldn’t have picked someone better. We must solve this little issue.” He rubbed his hands together. Anton’s pupils darkened. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” He was speaking to Heather, not me.

  Her lips tipped up and she tapped her index finger against her lips and shrugged. “If she’s available. The dance company in San Francisco just finished, and that wicked man who was stalking her group of friends is gone.” She shimmied in her seat. “The news has cleared. Perhaps having her come on as the choreographer would fix the problems you’re having with the backup dancers. I’ll give her a call, see if she’s interested in saving your ass. You know it’s going to cost you.”

  Anton laughed. “Doesn’t everything, H? I want her. I’m tired of dealing with this stupid fucker, and her contemporary work is best. Add the Latin fusion, she’ll know how to spin the angles right. I want all eyes to be on Mia. Want her mouthwateringly desirable on the video. Every man will want her, and no man will have her.” He grinned salaciously and popped an entire shrimp into his mouth and dropped the tail onto the side plate. Anton was beaming, obviously excited about his new idea.

  “So uh, who’s this choreographer?”

  Heather sipped her white wine and wiped her mouth. “A really gifted contemporary dancer who’s been on stage with the San Francisco Dance Company the last couple years, so we haven’t been able to steal her away.” She pointed one finger at Anton while holding her wine glass. “Anton fell in love with her body and the way she moves when we saw her show last year.”

  That information surprised me. “You’re into theatre productions?” I butted in.

  “Yes, Lucita. It calms me, and seduces my muse. I love to see others dancing, singing to the classics and new innovative pieces.”

  “Anyway,” Heather interrupted, “we found out she teaches dance for the San Francisco Theatre exclusively. You know she won’t leave San Francisco for Miami.” She addressed that last part to him. Anton frowned. “Something about needing to be where her sisters are. But if we offer her enough and get on the horn quickly, she might be willing to head out for the time Mia’s here while we’re filming. Could really add the element we need to take the video to the next level.” Abruptly, Heather stood up. “I’ll call now.” She looked down at her watch. “They’re three hours behind so we’re good.” Without further comment she left the table and headed for the open balcony.

  I sipped my wine and looked out over the ocean. The breeze wafted around us but the heat lamps near our table provided enough warmth. “That assistant of yours is pretty efficient.”

  Anton smiled. “She is. That’s why I keep her.”

  “May I be frank?” I asked pressing my lips together, waiting. />
  He leaned back, crossed an ankle to his knee and spread his arms out. “Of course.”

  “Why do you have that harsh tone with her? Don’t you ever worry she’ll leave you?” I truly wondered why anyone would stay with a man who acted like his shit didn’t stink half of the time, and the other half laid back and easy going. It was as though there were two completely different sides to him.

  “What would make you think that?” His eyes narrowed.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe the way you bark at her over the phone, walk in front of her like she’s your peon, and throw orders at her while walking away.”

  Anton scowled. “I value Heather’s opinion over all others. Hers is the only one I give credence to…ever. I trust her implicitly.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  Anton grabbed his drink and inhaled the rest of his Shiraz. “Has she said anything to you about leaving?” His tone proved that the idea of Heather leaving him was not a welcome one.

  “No! Not at all. I do get the hint that she wants more.”

  “More?” The question hung heavy. “As in a relationship?”

  I shook my head. Was he really that narcissistic? Scanning his body and the face angels would weep for, I guess he had a right to be. Sort of. “Not that I know of. I was referring to her work. Something she mentioned about her dream being to manage an artist. You seem to be lacking a manager at this time.”

  Anton’s hand came up to his mouth where he stroked that supremely kissable bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. “I don’t have one. Usually I just bounce all the decisions off of H and she sets everything up.”

  Interesting. “So, she’s kind of already managing you without the benefits or clout the title of Manager carries. Bummer for her.” Nonchalantly I fiddled with my hair and adjusted my seat so I was facing the water to give him space. The ocean is absolutely stunning. A pang hit my heart as I realized how much I missed home.